Hanukkah starts this week.  This year will be different with neither of my children here for any part of the 8 day celebration.  We are not heavy on tradition but do enjoy the gifts and being together, and  I make a mean latke!

All of this has started me thinking, something I have often entertained before but have never written.  Hanukkah is NOT the Jewish Christmas. It is a rather minor holiday, but in Western culture at least, has been magnified due to it's proximity to the Christmas season into a blend of the 2 events by at least the Reform Jewish population. I pulled out my decorations yesterday.  As I was sorting them out, I realized the majority are Christmas based that I thought I would be able to modify to "appear" appropriate to Hanukkah. This is a joke!  They are Christmas decorations. I know people who actually have "Hanukkah Bushes", but I have never gone that far!

The menorahs, dreidels, Stars of David are the appropriate symbols to Hanukkah, not the tinsel and "modified" wreaths and such that I have accumulated.  I even trudged through Michael's and Hobby Lobby searching for that "perfect" item I could pass off as something else again this year.


It started me really thinking about the reasons I have done this.  Is it social pressure and a need to try to make this Hanukkah holiday something of similar social value to Christmas?  I can see no other reason.  If Hanukkah fell in June, I doubt very much there would be any significant decorating aside from the holiday table.



I also have accumulated "seasonal" decorations, snowmen and such, that I used to put out with the pseudo-Hanukkah fare. My dear son Brendan always scoffed, "Mom they're Christmas decorations, why are you putting them out".  This is the same child who bought his mother a stuffed red Santa when he was very small, to have me not "feel bad" about giving up my childhood holiday.  I treasure that, not for the fact of what it was, but for the sentiment and kind-hearted thought  that was behind it.

I don't believe my children suffered any loss by not having Christmas. They were always the odd ones out at school, but that provided an opportunity to share different traditions.  They helped decorate the tree with Christian friends, and Christian friends were invited to participate in the Hanukkah celebrations. 

Anyway, I have decided to forget the decorating. I will leave out what I have done and will donate all the rest, minus my this one  REALLY COOL guy, to charity.  Someone is in for a great supply of snowmen!